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FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

businessinsider.com

131–140 of 196 posts

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#131

What is striking about the Sam Bankman-Fried case is that for a long time he was considered to be one of the few who really knew what he was doing and also an advocate for more regulation. It appears to have been a smoke screen, given the financial fragility of his multiple companies, he could not have been looking for more scrutiny and regulation, he was playing Poker with politicians and his competitors. Same with…

> an advocate for more regulation. Perhaps he was envisioning a GFC style bailout in case one of his martingale bets increased beyond the size of M2.

He was envisioning getting crypto embedded into portfolios of pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. There's only so much you can steal from the r/bitcoin r/stonks demographics.

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#132
post #124

> It’s just SBF, his family (his mother, father and brother are all in town) and close friends. A small team dedicated to fixing the world—via the magic of quantitative reasoning and the overwhelming force of goodwill. (...) It’s not worth the salt in one’s tears to be sad for the plight of the oligarchy—but there is a downside to billions. Reciprocity becomes difficult between the post-economic and the merely civili…

I think the same thing when I hear about rich techbros discuss "longtermism", like it's a real thing and not something dreamed up in a overheated tent at Burning Man.

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#133

For anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the atmosphere, it's good to know that in the series B round, they raised $420.69m from 69 investors. https://blockworks.co/news/sam-bankman-frieds-ftx-raises-pre... I don't know what those numbers mean, but those investors probably thought it was the funniest thing on earth, and they created history.

League of Legends player AND appreciates 2006-level Digg humor? Hire this man!

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#134
post #94
post #61

There are some golden statements in the original Sequoia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20221027181005/https://www.sequo... For example, Sam's opinion on books: “Oh, yeah?” says SBF. “I would never read a book.” I’m not sure what to say. I’ve read a book a week for my entire adult life and have written three of my own. “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actual…

There are so many red flags in that article, and that article is coming from Sequoia Capital itself. I can't understand how anyone would have invested anything at all in FTX, let alone an astonishing $1.3 billion in Series B and Series C. Does no-one at these VCs do any form of due diligence (e.g. reading the articles on their own web sites), or are they unfathomably incompetent, or living in some alternate reality f…

You're missing the point of VC funds. Due diligence doesn't matter, incompetence doesn't matter, reality doesn't matter. What matters is if they can turn their 1 dollar into 2.

Doesn't matter if that requires breaking laws(airbnb) or stealing from naive people(shitcoins) they will do it, full stop. Once you understand that VC funds are literally robber barons who grouped together and gave themselves a new name it all makes a lot more sense.

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#135
post #61

There are some golden statements in the original Sequoia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20221027181005/https://www.sequo... For example, Sam's opinion on books: “Oh, yeah?” says SBF. “I would never read a book.” I’m not sure what to say. I’ve read a book a week for my entire adult life and have written three of my own. “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actual…

[deleted]

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#136
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

If saying she’s a Harry Potter fan is a “micro-aggresssion” what do you call her stealing $95 million from public school teachers in Ontario? What a ridiculous thing to be offended by.

What a ridiculous thing to bring up details of someone’s life that are irrelevant to the news event.

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#137
post #124

> It’s just SBF, his family (his mother, father and brother are all in town) and close friends. A small team dedicated to fixing the world—via the magic of quantitative reasoning and the overwhelming force of goodwill. (...) It’s not worth the salt in one’s tears to be sad for the plight of the oligarchy—but there is a downside to billions. Reciprocity becomes difficult between the post-economic and the merely civili…

[deleted]

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#138
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

If saying she’s a Harry Potter fan is a “micro-aggresssion” what do you call her stealing $95 million from public school teachers in Ontario? What a ridiculous thing to be offended by.

One of those things is relevant to the article. The other is the sort of tone deaf shit that someone would say if they never read Harry Potter, thought they were perhaps “above” such lowly books, and just generally assumed that “childrens books are for children only”.

Context matters and the context of that statement was “I’m going to discredit this individual”. That you think “liking Harry Potter” is worthy of being discredited is glaringly obvious. The mention of her age and gender is also just not relevant unless you personally think that is discrediting information, which, yeah pretty fucking sexist.

I’m willing to guess you were raised in a fairly sheltered, wealthy environment? <—— This is a micro aggression.

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#139

The bit about him playing League of Legends during a meeting with Sequoia reads like something straight out of Silicon Valley.

Perhaps Mike Judge should be running a VC firm, instead of simply writing the playbook for future conmen.

Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried

#140
post #41
post #10

Vc are always the first to take ownership of the success of one of their company but also the first to blame the founder when it goes wrong

"Success has a thousand parents, failure is an orphan" (Quoted from Stephen Spielberg but I don't know where he got it from)

"If they win, I deserve all the credit. If they lose, I should not take any of the blame" - P45, this past week
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